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Upon the Rock of Tradition: Memorials [Upcoming Fan Splat]

11-01-2013, 02:41 PM

Since we've got a brand-new forum to play with, I thought I'd move this over. Dragonmystic and I have been working on a new fan splat to release once 3rd Edition is out and we can properly write Charms for them. In the meantime, we've been developing their history and other fluff elements. Here's what we've decided to show off so far:
MEMORIALS THROUGHOUT HISTORY:

THE FIVE-SOULED MISTRESS
​Like the other Celestial Exalted, the Memorial Exalted were created in the image of one of the Celestial Incarnae. Their patron was Mnemosyne.

​When the Primordials separated all of reality from the raw possibility of the Wyld, they also gave birth to its antithesis, Oblivion. While Creation and its denizens were too well anchored to be drawn into the nascent force of unmaking, there were other things that were not so well protected, namely the souls of the mortals they created to populate their world. The souls, burdened by the memories of their brief lives, needed constant shepherding or they would be inevitably be pulled into the Mouth of the Void, feeding it and making it stronger. Not about to spend their time minding the shades of lesser beings, the Primordials did as they always had before and created a god to deal with the problem for them. That god, or rather godess, was Mnemosyne.

​Born to be the Lady of Lethe, Mnemosyne was a soul of five parts, each maintaining a step along the path from death to rebirth. The first and most feared of her aspects was Ceres, the Harvester, who cuts free the hun of the fallen so that they might pass quietly on to their next life. The living feared her and her scythe, for when the dead could not rest for want of justice, Ceres wrought vengeance on her behalf. In the form of Charon, the Ferryman, he carried the souls of the dead through the unformed mists of the Underworld to Lethe. There Neptune, the Lady of the Dark Waters, would wash free the memories of their former life and gather the memories together. From these memories Pluto, the Weaver of Legends, would spin the thread of history and sew it into the Tapestry of That Which Was. Over all this Uranus, the Guardian of Souls, stood watch, standing guard at the edge of Oblivion to keep souls from falling over its precipice and being lost forever.

THE FOUNDING OF
THE AMBER ORDER
​When the Unconquered Sun unveiled his plan for rebellion, the Five-Souled Mistress wept, even as she agreed to the plan. While the future was not her domain, she could see that this conflict would see much pass beyond living memory. Countless lives would pass through her hands before the war would be over, each shining strand a tragedy about to be woven. But still she spun from Lethe and her own soul the Exaltations that would bear her name.
​She walked the world, seeking those with a reverence for the past and a desire to carry onward the traditions and honor of their forebears. These she made her Chosen, the Memorial Exalted, and with them formed the Amber Order, an organization aimed at protecting that which is and was within Creation.

​The Memorials were not as powerful as the other Celestial Exalted, particularly at first. Their powers were heavily tied into their memories of the past and so the first generation had little to draw upon. Still, they served the gods with honor and distinction.

​Where the Chosen of the Sun were grand generals and the Chosen of the Dragons were soldiers without peer, the Chosen of Mnemosyne found their place more often behind the lines, protecting supply lines, training troops, and guarding cities so that humanity might survive. Rarely was the work glorious, but it was necessary and the Memorials rose to the task.

THE DEATH OF MNEMOSYNE

​Wars are not without tragedy. Early in the war, before the Exalted had yet slain a Primordial, the unthinkable happened. The Dragon's Shadow somehow learned where Mnemosyne had secreted herself, despite the seal that Jupiter had placed to hide the Incarnae from their former masters, and with the knowledge laid an ambush for the Keeper of the Dead. His twisted spawn swarmed into the goddess' sanctum like locusts, turning day to night with their misshapen forms, and lurking behind them was the Dragon's Shadow himself.

​The Five-Souled Mistress did not die easily. Ichor slicked the ground around Ceres and legions broke upon the shield of Uranus. Charon cast his foes directly into the Mouth of the Void and Pluto ensnared thousands in unbreakable amber threads. Neptune drowned her foes' minds in the depths of Lethe, leaving them stripped of identity and purpose. No, Mnemosyne did not die easily, but she did die.

​After wearing her down with his vile servants, the Shadow of All Things moved in for the kill and poisoned her very Essence. He watched as she rotted from the inside out, her being unraveling in agony. Then he slipped away into the night, his laughter hanging on the wind.

​As soon as her death was discovered, the questions started. The first was always “How could this have happened?” Jupiter's seal should have prevented any natural signs of the Lady's presence or a casual slip of the tongue from giving away her position to the enemy. This inevitably lead to the second question. “Who betrayed Mnemosyne?”
​Though the Celestial Host searched for a traitor amongst themselves, none were found who could have given away the location of the Lady to the enemy. The demands of the war prevented a thorough investigation into the matter, leaving the question without an answer.

THE BIRTH OF THE UNDERWORLD

​The Five-Souled Mistress would not go unavenged. Her death spurred not only her own Chosen to greater efforts, but the entire Celestial Host as well. Together, they pushed forward in a massive offensive and overwhelmed one of the Primordials. It cursed the Exalted with its last breath and as it died its soul was caught in Lethe's snare and dragged into the Underworld.

​The cycle of reincarnation tried to cleanse the dead titan of its memories and prepare it for rebirth, but it could not. Perhaps the soul of a Primordial is too vast for Lethe to encompass or too well anchored to Creation to pass on. Perhaps all that was needed was a skilled hand, a hand now missing since the passing of the Keeper of the Dead, to manage the cycle and prevent damage to the mechanisms of Lethe.

​Regardless, the consequences were soon apparent. The cycle of reincarnation cracked beneath the strain, allowing the souls of the dead to escape rebirth. The dead Primordial sunk down into the depths of the Underworld to hover just above the Mouth of the Void, soon to be joined by more of its kin. The titan's nightmares and fractured memories bled forth into the mists of the Underworld, torturing them into the ever-twisting Labyrinth and the beginnings of a mirror-image of Creation atop it. This bled upwards like a bloodstain into Creation itself, forming the first of the shadowlands.

​This radical shift in the nature of the Underworld did not go unnoticed by either side. The Underworld became another battlefield in the war, another front to watch for advancing enemies, another route deep into enemy territory. The Memorials found that they were surprisingly better equipped to handle the challenges of this new frontier. The other Exalted had difficulty operating for long periods of time within the Underworld, but they had no such difficulties. They easily developed Charms to deal with the Underworld and the ghosts that now lived there. It became as much a part of their domain as the past.

​The end of the Primordial War did not bring rest to the Memorials, for they had to make sure the great many new and unusual restless denizens of the Underworld would not rise again; chief among them the corpses of the slain Primordials. With the help of the shades of their former comrades, they quieted these “Neverborn,” performing what rites they could conceive upon the tombs-corpses of the fallen Primordials. Somewhat placated, the dead titans slipped into a troubled sleep, freeing the Memorials to determine how best to tend to the rest of the Underworld and the countless ghosts that had now slipped free from the call of Lethe.

​With the aid of the Solar Deliberative, it was determined that it would be foolish to try to return the Underworld to its former state and that the presence of ghosts helped to stabilize the Underworld against the mad imaginings of the slumbering Neverborn. The necropolis of Stygia was built around the Mouth of the Void and its ghostly denizens charged with the maintenance of the city. Ghosts elsewhere would be helped to rejoin the cycle of reincarnation, a duty that fell to the Chosen of Mnemosyne now that their own patron had passed away. Bastion cities were built in the Underworld, bases of operation and places of refuge for the Memorial Exalted and their mortal followers.
​All seemed to be going smoothly in the Underworld. Then the Black Nadir Concordant, exploring what power might be gained by mastering the Void, tore open the tomb-corpses of the Neverborn and ripped from their minds the first secrets of necromancy.

​The Amber Order was furious, as the Neverborn stirred again and could not be coerced back to their slumber. Things stirred in the Labyrinth that had not been seen in ages. But the charismatic Solars and Lunars of the Concordant swayed the Deliberative to their side; after all, was not the power of the Yozi and their demons under their control? Would not power over the Void be much the same thing? The Amber Order could do nothing but bow to the desires of the Deliberative, but they resented their authority being circumvented without so much as a consultation on the matter.

​But time can change the hearts of all, and even the most stubborn Memorial could not deny the great power provided by necromancy. Those that were initiated into the dark art found they had a natural talents for it, the rituals of necromancy coming easily to their minds and hands. Not many years after the discovery of necromancy, many Memorials were practicing the very art they had once scorned.

THE RESSURECTION OF MNEMOSYNE

​As the First Age progressed, the Primordials' death curse ate away at the souls of the Exalted. While the Solars were affected the most, slowly descending into paranoia and madness, the Memorials were not free from the Great Curse. They became entranced by things which had once been but were now no more. The Primordial War was so long ago, yet it held such great wonders lost to mankind, including their own lost goddess. If only they could bring such things back… yet it was just an idle wish.

​Then the Solars unlocked another, deeper, circle of necromancy. The Amber Order, which had been so recalcitrant about the discovery and practice of the dark art was first discovered, was among the first to support the Solars as they explored the limits of the Labyrinth Circle of Necromancy, for they saw glimmers of hope for their lost Patron in its macabre wonders.

​The greatest minds among the Chosen of Mnemosyne came together and designed a grand ritual that they believed would have the power to restore their patron to life. All that would be needed was the aid of the Solars to carry it out. They presented their plan to the Solar Deliberative and argued its merits before the assembled Exalts.
​The scope of their project caused much debate, both in the upper and lower houses of the Deliberative. The project's death blow came when one of the Sidereals, a Chosen of Endings, proclaimed a prophecy: Should the ritual be performed, death and tragedy would haunt all who were involved.
​The Memorials accused the Sidereals of lying, of using this supposed prophecy to murder their dreams, but the damage was done. The Solar Exalted, fearing for their own safety and power, sided with the Sidereals and ordered the Memorials to stop their pursuit.

​Outwardly, the Memorials begrudgingly abandoned the project, but inwardly they could not let go of the past. The Amber Order waited until the eyes of the Solar Deliberative turned from them to other projects and started to gather in secret. If the Solars would not help, they would be forced to stand on their own to bring their beloved Goddess back.

​It took time to make adjustments to the ritual to compensate for the lack of Solars, but eventually the Amber Order felt confident in their ritual. They assembled all of the Memorials together for their great working, each schooled in their place in the ritual, and began.

​As the ritual built to its climax, its power reverberated through the Loom of Fate. A shadowland opened around the ritual site, spreading outward like a pool of blood from the sheer amount of necromancy being performed. Strange events occurred across Creation – the dead rising from their graves, phantoms of fallen cities reappearing, monstrosities slinking out of the Labyrinth to terrorize the living, and more. No one with any occult training could mistake that a working of great power had just occurred.

THE BREAKING OF
THE AMBER ORDER

​The ritual's result was not what the Memorials expected. Their patron goddess was not restored to life. Instead, something cracked within their Exaltations, the strain of the energies they had attempted to harness too much for them to handle. The full extent of the damage would not be apparent for many years, but their previously flawless memories now could only reach back only a dozen lifetimes of so and their time as Exalts became only a tenth of what it once was. Weakened, exhausted, and despairing, they did not resist when the agents of the Deliberative came to arrest them.

​The Solars tried them all and found them to be dangers to Creation. The entire Amber Oder, both mortal and Exalt, was executed and their Catalysts confiscated. The Solars divided the Memorial Exaltations among themselves, to be dealt with as they saw fit. The care of the Underworld was left to a disorganized volunteer effort, mostly made up of bored necromancers, a few Chosen of Endings, and a smattering of priests looking for new peoples to convert. The Memorials were also stripped of their seats in the Deliberative, excluded from the rule of Creation until such a time the Deliberative deemed them “no longer a danger to the stability of the world.”

​The harsh punishment the Solars meted out to their fellow Celestial Exalts, especially the casual treatment they gave the Memorials' Exaltations, shocked some among the Sidereals and Terrestrials. They began to truly look at what the Solars were doing and noticed for the first time the excesses and indulgences of the Chosen of the Sun.

THE SCATTERING OF THE MEMORIALS

The future on the Memorial Exalted was now in the hands of the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun. A few took the confiscated Memorial Catalysts and tried to find those that would uphold the duties the Amber Order had previously carried out. Others gave them to friends and favored servants, using the Memorials to watch over their lands and interests. A handful put their Catalysts on display as curiosities. The most paranoid of Solars feared that new Memorials would seek revenge for their previous incarnations and so sealed them away in vaults and tombs.

The new generation of Memorials took up existing traditions of service or founded their own, all in service to the Solars. Wardens strengthened martial orders, directed the fortification of cities, and trained soldiers. Scholars founded academies, took part in research programs, and mentored students. Wayfinders explored into the Wyld, arranged trade routes, and built diplomatic ties between nations. Founders forged wonders, managed the affairs of cities, and settled new towns. Revenants quieted the restless dead, judged the crimes of the living, and oversaw the burial rites of kings.

They did not have many years before calamity befell them again. The Sidereals, convinced that the Solars were leading Creation to destruction, caused the Dragon-Blooded to rise up in rebellion against the Solar Exalted.

The Solars did not go quietly and the short, but brutal war that raged spanned Creation. The Memorials were drafted by all sides, press-ganged into serving if they would not serve willingly. The cities they built were used as staging bases, the soldiers they trained marched to their deaths, the academies they founded turned to produce weapons, the trade routes they blazed used to supply armies on the march. For the Memorials, the war was a saga of struggle and tragedy as they tied to keep the things that they had built from being ground to dust beneath the legions of the Solars and Dragon-Blooded.

Comment

When the dust finally settled and the Solars were gone, Creation was left with a giant power vacuum and the Dragon-Blooded fell into factional infighting in their haste to fill it. As a score of Terrestrial daimyos vied for control of the world, many of the Memorial Exalted saw a chance for themselves. Some offered their services to the daimyos as generals and advisers while others rebuilt or conquered cities to make their own.

Those who claimed kingdoms of their own were soon dragged into the saga of wars and intrigues that dominated the Shogunate era. Some stayed independent, either through their own military strength or by playing their enemies against each other, while others were forced to be tributary states of one warlord or another. Many of the Memorial Kings tried to preserve or recreate the glories of the past, their successes making them targets for those hungry for First Age wonders.

Those that found their place in the courts of the Dragon-Blooded daimyos formed a counterpoint to the Sidereals. Where the Chosen of the Stars advised in secret using their knowledge of the future, the Chosen of Lethe advised openly using their knowledge of the past. From their positions as trusted administrators, tacticians, and historians, the Memorial Exalted toppled empires, forged alliances, and organized more than a few coups.

Those Memorials that didn't find a place in Creation as either a ruler or a servant retreated into the Underworld to the ancient bastion cities there, only to find their claims contested by the nascent Deathlords and their armies. These kingdoms of the living among the dead found the Underworld a different, much more inhospitable place without the support of Creation. Many crumbled, unable to secure food, fresh water, or allies in the barren kingdom, but others endured to become a thorn in the Deathlords' sides.

THE AGE OF SORROWS

When the Great Contagion struck Creation, it did not spare the duchies of the Memorials. Proud city-states in Creation died or were abandoned because of the plague, their rulers likewise dead or left to wander homeless. The bastion cities of the Underworld found themselves with the opposite problem. While their isolation within the Underworld shielded their living populations from the spread of the Contagion, the spirits of the dead flooded into their kingdoms in droves. Unprepared for the great influx of the dead, riots, rebellions, and other unrest broke out within the Underworld duchies, often provoked by the agents of one Deathlord or another. Those trying to help ghosts pass on to Lethe were overwhelmed by the sheer number of the dead. Specters proliferated, wars broke out across the lands of the dead, and shadowlands formed in increasing numbers.

The Deathlords, their armies swelled by the ranks of the angry Contagion dead, used the state of panic and disarray as a time to strike at the surviving Memorial duchies and cement their control over the Underworld. Dukes were slain, driven from their lands, or forced to become tributary states. Only a handful were able to weather the assaults of the Deathlords and remain independent.

The sudden invasion of the Balorian Crusade brought an end to the Contagion, but not to the carnage. Those slain by the Fair Folk still added to the chaos gripping the Underworld. Only those closest to Creation's center or bypassed by the armies of the Fair Folk escaped unscathed.

The rise of the Scarlet Empress initially was seen as a blessing by what remained of the duchies of the Memorials, as she routed the armies of the fae with the Sword of Creation. However, much as had happened in the Shogunate, they soon found themselves either forced to submit to the Realm or to struggle to survive against its might.

Those Memorials that were incorporated into the Realm slowly found their political power waning, as the more numerous Terrestrials vied for their positions. The Immaculate Order, in particular, was eager to get the Caretakers out of public eye, insisting that the Dragon-Blooded, as the most enlightened and most favored of Heaven, should be the only ones to rule. The Memorials are now little more than powerful curiosities in Realm society, not overtly shunned, but also not wholly welcomed either.

Comment

Issac stood on the battlements in the fading light, surveying the advancing enemy below. From Red Pass marched the army of the First and Forsaken Lion. Thousands strong, they marched with silent precision, the only sound the echoes of boots on stone and the rattle of armor plates. For some, the sight would terrify, but Issac had seen its like before.

He turned and made his way along the wall that blocked the pass, inspecting the men standing ready. Many looked grim, but his presence reassured them. At only thirty summers, he was young for the post of Lord Captain, but that mattered little. The sword made up for much. It rode easily at his hip now, a masterwork of amber crystal, as much a part of him as his arm.

Below, just beyond bowshot, the ghostly soldiers formed up, as many abreast as the steep-walled ravine would allow. Here and there, the shades of men carried long siege ladders or grappling hooks, while in the center a team carried a heavy, iron-shod battering ram. Issac had seen the tactics a thousand times. The forces of the Lion had been trying the walls of the fortress periodically for generations, whenever not distracted by other conquests.

“Bowmen, make ready!” he called into the twilight. All around him archers nocked arrows and took a firing stance. And there it was, the deep bellow of horns to signal the charge. The war ghosts surged forward, eating ground at an inhuman pace. “Bowmen, loose!” he called and hundreds of arrows answered. Each arrow found its mark, most sending a shade to a second death, but the host before them barely seemed to ripple. A second volley and then a third came before the front lines reached the wall. Issac's men began to drop stones and pour boiling oil down into the front ranks, even as the first ladders and ropes came to rest atop the wall.

Most were thrown or cut free, but there were too many to get them all in time, and ghosts poured atop the wall. Issac unsheathed his sword in a single smooth motion, taking a fighting stance with the ease of a lifetime of practice, and attacked. He threw himself into the thickest of the fighting, his every strike finding the opening he knew would be there. The last of daylight was gone now, only the torches and the bonfires atop the wall keeping the darkness at bay, but it didn't matter. He knew these walls, knew every crack, every worn stone. He could fight blind if he had to. He had fought here for centuries, had fought here before the slaughter that twisted Red Pass into a shadowland.

A horn sounded from atop the walls, a higher, warbling cry than the horns of the dead. The gate was in danger. Issac pulled himself from the fighting, letting his soldiers take his place, and ran towards the center of the wall. The battering ram had reached the gate and was already at work, staving in its heavy timbers. The silver wards inlaid in the wood kept the dead from simply passing through, but they did little to stop force of arms. War ghosts armed with heavy shields stood guard around the ram, keeping the arrows and stones of the soldiers above the gate from attacking the ram-bearers.

Issac cast himself from the wall, dropping thirty feet to land among the dead soldiers. He rolled with the fall, expertly absorbing the impact as though he had done this a hundred times, and came to his feet already swinging. The first ghost fell instantly, shield and armor cleaved through by Issac's sword. The second ghost met its end a moment later, pale flames erupting from a wound, across its chest as his Fetters burned.

And then the darkness was gone at the base of the wall. A honey-colored glow, shot through with rays of pale violet, surrounded Issac and his blade as he fought, building in intensity as he scythed through the shades defending the ram. As the last fell, he brought his sword down upon the siege weapon's heavy center beam with a two-handed grip. The wood splintered apart, suddenly soft and rotted by age, leaving the ram a useless ruin.

The sword now a bar of light in his hand, Issac made for one of the enemy's own siege ladders. Arrows fell about him like rain, but the Memorial ducked expertly behind the bodies of his assailants, his would-be killers acting as his shield. He gained the base of the ladder and sheathed his sword as he began to climb. With the soldiers above providing covering fire for his ascent, he quickly regained the wall top and kicked the ladder free to shatter upon the rocky ground below.

The ram gone and most of the ladders as well, the shades began to fall back from the wall. A cheer came up from the defenders, but Issac raised a hand to silence them. He pointed and all eyes fastened upon the ranks of the dead again forming in the pass. “Back to your posts. The enemy isn't through with us yet.” The men, disciplined as ever, took their places once more, readying for the second charge.

Though tired and with dawn still far off, the Chosen of Uranus did not doubt that his men would hold the night. They had never failed him before, not in the centuries of his memory, and he would see to it that they did not fail him now.

Comment

She entered the workshop. The forge along the wall sat cold – Lily would not need it today. Its work had already been done. With it, she had melted pine resin, had simmered her own memories until they dissolved. The result lay on the work table, a rough cast bar of amber five feet long and six inches wide, red-gold in the window's light.

Lily closed the door, steeling herself for the work ahead. She didn't like making weapons – it felt wrong to make something that could only destroy. Were times different, she would be making a tool to ease the labors of men or even a work of art to inspire the mind. But times were what they were. Change was in the air and change did not come easily. She would need a weapon if she was to protect her family and her home from what was to come. Long experience had taught her that.

The young Memorial gathered the tools that she would need, planes and chisels and sharp knives. Woodworking tools, not the normal tools for a smith, but her skills would suffice. She reached out and touched the bar, ran her fingers along the grain. Not quite stone and not quite wood, amber was memory given solid form. Her memories, in this case. The memories of her mother's death.

The memories came back as she set to work. Her mother had died only a few years ago. A fever had taken her, something that had spared most others in town. She recalled the helplessness she had felt, her powers then unable to do anything. But helplessness would not help her family now, so she pared it away.

Sadness came next to Lily, the melancholy she felt as she tried to go about her day with her mother gone. The sound of her mother's voice, the smell of baking bread, the reassuring touch of her hand – it was all the small things that were missed. But sadness would not save them and so it too was cut away.

She continued until all that was left was pain. The raw, hollow feeling of something beautiful torn from her life, like a hole in her heart. Pain that had driven her to her knees in grief, had caused tears to fall like rain. Pain like that cut sharper than any knife, cut deeper than any sword, and so she honed it to a razor's edge.

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she finished her work. Hours had passed as she struggled, both with the memories and the material itself. Her tools, fine steel and freshly sharpened, were now dulled by the amber's stubborn resistance. She chipped away the last sliver from the the blade's tang and stepped back.

The blade was just over four feet from tang to tip, gently curved and four inches wide. A shallow fuller ran the length of it, to lighten the blade and give it strength. Its name was lightly etched into the flat. Loss, she had named it.

The sword was not finished. It still had to be tempered to give it imperishable strength and the hilt still needed to be forged from steel and copper and set with onyx and citrine, to shield the hand that held it from the blade's cruel power. But the worst was done. Lily wished she could be glad.

Comment

I can't really whip out examples, since we are designing for Third Edition. However, I can give some of our goals for how their Charms work.

Memorial Charms draw on themes of memory, recollection, nostalgia, tradition, honor, experience, and history. Memorials are very human in their expression of magic, touching close to some Solar themes. Where Solars are peerlessly talented, Memorials are peerlessly experienced. A Solar is a genius with a sword, but a Memorial has been fighting with swords since swords were invented. Solars magic will still be better. Solars will be able to make impossible shots with a bow, while a Memorial will only be able to make shots that would be possible. However, inhuman experience is only one expression of their themes.

Other Charms will draw on their incredible memories, such as an Awareness Charm that allows a Memorial to perfectly recall his surroundings, allowing him to move about on spatial memory alone or an Investigation Charm that lets them recall anything that they or any of their past incarnations knew.

Their power over memories extends to those of others. They can read them, rewrite them, steal them, handle them physically, give them to people, cause people to regard their memories differently. One of their most feared powers is that of stripping a target's entire memory from him, leaving him an amnesiac.

Further Charms allow a Memorial to manipulate Ghosts and their Fetters and exploit the nature of the Underworld. They can send a ghost on, deny a soul entry to Lethe, pass straight from Creation to the Underworld (and vice versa), be mistaken for ghosts, and more.

Comment

So, apparently I can't edit old posts anymore, so that reserved post is useless. Here's a new piece, something to showcase how different they are from the other Celestials.

MORTALITY

Like many other Exalted, Memorials can come from all walks of life. Because of their unique method of Exaltation, the Chosen of Mnemosyne are typically born into or join an organization of some kind: a monastic order, a thieves' guild, a knighthood, or a noble family. The size and prestige of the order varies dramatically, from simple village institutions to nation-spanning organizations. They work their way up through the ranks of their order, possibly being groomed for Exaltation. With the possibility of Exalting on the line, competition for positions of higher authority can be fierce. Exceptions occur, of course, but typically the mortal is at least somewhat ready for the moment of Exaltation.

Those Memorials that weren't chosen to inherit an existing Memorial's Exaltation are usually those that recover a lost Memorial Catalyst. Historians, archeologists, or tomb robbers, they uncover their own Exaltation in ruins, on ancient battlefields, or inside the tomb of an ancient king.

EXALTATION

For most of the Celestial Exalted, Exaltation is an unexpected event, a power that comes without warning at a time of need or in a moment of greatness. For the Memorial Exalted, this is rare. Where the Exaltations of the other Celestial Exalted are insubstantial and reside wholly within the soul of their host, the Memorial Exaltation has a physical form known as a Catalyst. Those that would become one of the Chosen of Mnemosyne must touch an unclaimed Catalyst and be found worthy of its power.

Those who are found worthy to become one of the Memorial Exalted all share an understanding of the power the past holds upon the present. A scholar fascinated by the stories of ages gone by, A treasure hunter well-acquainted with the value and danger of First Age artifacts, an heiress trapped in a marriage arranged before her birth – all of these could become one of the Memorial Exalted. Respect, love, fear: it does not matter; how a candidate feels about the past is irrelevant. Only a comprehension of the weight of history is necessary.

If the candidate is found unworthy, either for lack of respect for the past or for want of sufficient heroism, nothing happens. The Catalyst is an ordinary object as far as that person is concerned. Should he be found worthy, the Catalyst forges a bond with his soul and he takes the Second Breath.

Comment

So with regards to Amber as the Magical Material of the Memorials, do you guys have any special plans for Blue Amber?
I'm asking because Blue Amber is special in the real world, only found in the Dominican Republic and universally formed of the resin of a long extinct species of trees.

Comment

I think Blue Amber is cool, but as far as I know we have no special plans for it. It will be a color you can get your amber weapons made from, but it's more a "I think blue is cool" thing. There's really no mythological resonance particular to blue amber that I know of.

Comment

I'd go so far as to suggest that perhaps Blue Amber would have the fluff of not being created by human hands- that it must be found in the general areas of extremely significant events in the history of Creation. Much of it would be from prehistory. In a sense, Blue Amber could be coalesced from the most salient memories of the world.

On Earth, there won't ever be more blue amber than there is now, unless a tree evolves which produces a near identical resin composition to the extinct species of trees it came from. In Creation, then, the supply is limited by the gradual accumulation of grand historical events.

Comment

Amber, more properly called anamnestic amber, is a memory given solid form. Its typical appearance is similar to that of the the more common fossil amber, but it is more translucent and lacks the flaws and inclusions that discolor its mundane cousin. As with fossil amber, anamnestic amber is most commonly a shade of golden brown, often compared to dark honey, but it also can be found in shades of green, gray, lavender, orange, and blue.

Anamnestic amber is made by dissolving a memory into molten tree resin, followed by distilling it down into a hardened crystal. Those holding a piece of anamnestic amber often feel a sense of the memory that went into its making, often accompanied by a feeling of nostalgia.

The principle difficulty in the manufacturing of anamnestic amber is acquiring and manipulating the memories that form the core of the material. Memorial craftsmen have the easiest time in handling raw memory, as their Charms allow them to extract and handle it as a pseudophysical substance. Otherwise, handling raw memory requires specialized artifacts, Fair Folk assistants, or other esoteric techniques. Because of this, anamnestic amber is overwhelmingly the province of the Chosen of Memory.

Unlike many of the other magical materials, anamnestic amber cannot be worked like steel or other metals, but is instead carved like wood or stone. Where possible, pieces are rough cast while still molten and then pared and polished into their final shape. Other times many smaller pieces, often the scraps from a previous project, are carved to join together without seam and fitted into a larger whole. When other materials are used to join the pieces of an amber artifact together, gold and brass are often the materials of choice, as those metals both complement the aesthetics of the piece and do not hamper the Essence flow of the whole. Ivory is also commonly used as both an inlay and as structural support.